Do you believe drug addiction is a disease or a choice?

[eddielee]

No matter how you start, once your body is chemicaly locked into the drug you are a addicted. I would not call chronic pain sufferers or cancer patients who require a dose of a narcotic as being diseased, nor should any negative stigma be associated with them. You can get hooked form recreational use and that is a different problem. Because your body chemicaly depends upon the substance, you cannot stop, no mattter who much will power you posess, therefore it could be called a disease. In the case of chronic pain it is a legitimate addiction, the only alternative is unecessary suffering. If you do not suffer from a chronic condition, you may still be hooked, but the condition is different, and treatment should be sought to be free from the drugs. I have chronic pain, was prescribed daily medication, and I do not consider myself and addict, unless I was taking the medication simply to get high and did not suffer a chronic painful condition. One problem with calling an addiction a disease, is it makes it more difficult to treat, as a person may feel that since they have a disease there is a sense of hoplessness.

 

[peeonme]

When a person takes a medication that causes a chemical dependence on that medication it is different than one who is self medicating. A person who self medicates has a need of some kind for a drug, be it alcohol or some so called recreational drug.
They have what I think of as a double addiction, a chemical need as their system has adjusted to the use of the drug and also the original pain in their soul/spirit/ psyche that drove them to seek relief.

I take phenobarbital for epilepsy. My system is dependent upon it and if I were to stop I would have to be weaned off of it, but I am not an addict in the truest since of the word.

 

[mikey3000]

I think addiction falls under the umbrella of mental health.

 

[kallipolis]

I think addiction falls under the umbrella of mental health.

Should those addicted to coffee be invited to attend a meeting with a psychiatrist to discuss appropriate medication?

 

[peeonme]

Most would agree that the addiction is not a choice.
How one responds or treats their addiction surely is. If a person tries and fails in recovery it's understandable, tobacco is hard to overcome in one's life, human nature is frail and breaking an addiction takes an immense effort, I think that a lot of us non addicted folks understand that.

What I don't get, just from my own personal experience with addicts in my family is their willingness to play the victim and take no responsibility for their actions.

Receiving phone calls at 2:00 am from your brothers wife on numerous occasions about his hallucinations and rushing over to "help"
or going to find that he has broken every window or piece of glass in his home because his wife took the kids and left is disheartening to say the least.

When you get the "I'm sorry" letter when he is in rehab and in it he inserts a disclaimer saying none of it was really his fault, when he says that most of his problems were caused by me, because dad who died in 1961 "always liked me best", and life has been so unfair, largely because he had a younger brother (yours truly), you get a little pissed.

Finally when this addict pushes every button and burns every bridges you tell him to fuck off, well, then they say you just don't understand.

This is only one, I could tell you about uncles, cousins and in laws, having to chip in $100.00 towards a funeral when I was 17, for a person I never knew.

What pisses me more than anything is that everyone of these poor victims had and attitude of superiority and condescension toward us stupid non dopers and drinkers.

Trust me, there is more than one victim of addiction in families, but from my experience the only one that the poor addict sees is in the mirror.

 

[MrRochesterNY]

I think that anybody who has not "been there, done that" like Georgiadude has (posting #28) is not qualified to say what addiction is.
Georgiadude's description of his fall into addiction and his uphill fight to conquer it has the ring of truth and painful experience. He knows what he is talking about and not just dishing out theory.

 

[mikey3000]

Should those addicted to coffee be invited to attend a meeting with a psychiatrist to discuss appropriate medication?

What about sex addiction too?

Sure, if it fits the definition. :


1 : a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)
2 : an unusually great interest in something or a need to do or have something

Simple Definition of addiction

 

[xbuzzerx]

I think it's a choice. Life is all about choices.

Why is it either/or?

It's both.

If chemo was 100% guaranteed to cure cancer, but you had to live through a period of such misery while on the chemo that many people would seriously consider letting the cancer kill them instead, that'd be closer to understanding the answer to the question you're asking.

 

[kallipolis]

What about sex addiction too?

Sure, if it fits the definition. :


1 : a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)
2 : an unusually great interest in something or a need to do or have something

Simple Definition of addiction

There is therapy available for those whose sexual habits become highly addictive, and self destructive.

 

[rareboy]

Even compulsive, addictive behaviour can be triggered by metabolic and neuro-chemical disorders.

I knew a man who developed a manic depressive disorder that was triggered by neuro-chemical imbalance...when he was in a manic state, his inhibitions disappeared and he became reckless and compulsive...including gambling and unsafe sex.

It wasn't some moral or character flaw that drove him to this...it was his brain and metabolism.